Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #32

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy (2001)


Some facts about New York circa 2001: there were more black people in the NYC area than the entire state of California, 124,000 violent crimes took place at the same time the papers were celebrating a crime dip, the cops behind raping Abner Louima's police were beginning double digit jail sentences at the same time the cops behind killing Amadou Dilalo were walking. And after the towers fell, Bush dragged his feet on giving NYC the promised aid, all the while with crumbling school systems, another Republican in City Hall, and street violence in the non-gentrified areas of NYC all but ignored by whites within NYC and the rest of the country.

All this led to the greatest independently released hip-hop album this decade, a masterpiece by Cannibal Ox that's continued ignorance 9 years later probably had more to do with hip-hop's artistic demise than anything. Iron Galaxy, the debut track of The Cold Vein, set an awe-inspiring poetic portrait of how the other half of NYC lived, backed by a masterfully inventive production by El-P.

Simon Reynolds, who just a few weeks ago argued that hip-hop has almost irrevocably demised, wrote possibly the definitive quote about independent hip-hop in his 2001 piece on Cannibal Ox: "El-P's the anti-bling king, with an approach to sound that equates 'independent' with 'f*cked.'"

Artistic integrity is a luxury most cannot afford when you're just trying to avoid dying in a world almost completely ignored by the country deemed to protect you. That's why "Iron Galaxy" is relentlessly bleak, declaring that "New York is evil at its core." And that's just the first 6 minutes of 76 minutes of The Cold Vein a social portrait that's only grown more vital as the tentacles of white ignorance stretch further and further into the city's bowels. This isn't a song you'll hear in a loft apartment in Williamsburg, or a house party in West Harlem. "Iron Galaxy" is what you play after you've gone through yet another violent crime, as you cry yourself to sleep.

Labels: 2000s, cannibal ox, iron galaxy, lists, pop music, songs of the decade